(This ficlet was inspired by a question by Crusading Saint, "What would Daria be like if she’d never met Jane?" A related question gave me the following answer. It occurred to me that I might make a small series out of it, call it "Daria in Purgatory" or "Daria Does Highland" or "The UnHighlander" or some such. What do you think? Please R&R.

THE STREETS OF HIGHLAND

What if the Morgendorffers had never left Highland?

~by~

Galen Hardesty

Daria Morgendorffer sat in the scant shade of a bush beside the cracked, crumbling sidewalk, being careful to avoid the sandburrs that grew everywhere. Highland roses, the locals called them. Daria chuckled bitterly at herself. As many years as she’d lived , or rather existed, in Highland, Texas, she still didn’t consider herself a local, and probably never would. She hated this place with a smoldering passion, a passion that was becoming more prone to flareups of late.

Looking down the dusty, trashy street again, Daria saw two familiar figures approaching. Reluctantly, she stood and picked up her sack, abandoning the hot shade for the even hotter afternoon sun of the Texas panhandle. Holding the sack carefully in both hands and walking carefully on the dangerously deteriorated sidewalk, she set out in their direction.

Daria’s gorge began to rise as she got close enough to hear the pair’s guttural chuckling. They seemed to be occupied with grabbing their crotches, attempting to pick each other’s noses, and searching the gutter for lost treasure. But then Beavis looked up and saw her. "Hey, check it out, Butthead! It’s Diarrhea! Diarrhea, cha cha cha! Diarrhea, cha cha cha!" It seemed to amuse them every bit as much today as it had that first time, so many miserable years ago. Daria knew they would never tire of it, as long as they lived.

Butthead broke off the chant first. "Hey, Diarrhea, whatcha got in the sack?"

"Heh heh, heh heh heh, you said "sack!" M’heh, heh-heh." Beavis’s sparkling wit shone forth.

Controlling her hatred of the horrid nickname with the ease of long practice, Daria replied, "Beer."

"Beer! Hey, cool! Whatcha gonna do with it?"

"Throw it away, I guess. I don’t like beer. I just found it, and picked it up so little kids wouldn’t get it."

"Throw it away?!" shrieked Beavis. "You crazy—Ow! Dammit!" His tirade was cut short by Butthead’s backhand.

"Uhh, why don’cha give it to us? We’ll get rid of it for you, and you won’t have to, like, carry it." Butthead slyly- for him- suggested.

"Huh? Oh, yeah! Well take it! We’ll make sure little kids don’t get it. M’heh."

"Well, okay," said Daria, smiling a little in spite of herself. "Don’t take it out of the bag till you get it home. Cops’ll take it away from you." She handed Butthead the sack and continued on her way.

Beavis looked in the sack. "Hey, check it out! It’s Lone Star! That’s, like, the good stuff!"

"Huh huh, yeah, that’s cool! It’s, like, the official State beer! It’s on the flag and stuff!" Butthead observed knowledgeably.

Daria glanced back frequently over her shoulder, observing the progress of the two low-grade morons in the other direction. Damn! They were taking the six-pack out of the sack already! She nervously fingered a small box in her pocket. They needed to get a little farther away before...

Her thought was cut short by she squeal of tires. A disreputable looking old muscle car with fat tires had come to an abrupt halt abreast of the Dumbassic Duo. Todd’s car. The evil bastard was saying something to them. Daria didn’t need to be psychic to know what would happen next. If she waited till just the right moment, she could get all three. Ducking behing a power pole, she observed the event unfold. The right moment came and passed. The six-pack was in the car and it sped away, leaving Butthead holding a sore arm and both of them cursing. Daria slipped around behind the pole as Todd’s car roared past and on down the street. Hand in her pocket, she slid a switch to the on position, and then pressed a button.

A block away, in the front passenger seat of Todd’s car, a small explosive charge detonated, shattering the six beer bottles and vaporizing the gasoline they contained. Fat billows of orange flame belched out of the cockpit in all directions. Blazing like a pile of old tires, the car’s remains rolled to a stop two blocks away. "Almost like a Viking funeral" thought Daria, smirking. "But he’s missing a dog."

Beavis and Butthead came running up, but stopped when they saw Daria. "Hey, Daria, did you see that?" Beavis blurted.

"Yeah I saw it. Was that Todd? Why do you suppose he did that?" Daria replied.

"Uhh, I dunno. Woah, that’s cool! Todd is so cool!" Butthead opined.

"Heh heh heh, yeah, Todd is cool! Todd rules!" Beavis contributed.

"Yeah, Todd is cool as hell." said Daria.

"Hey, the beer’s in there! C’mon, Butthead, maybe we can save it!" And with that, the two went running off toward Todd’s funeral pyre. Turning her steps toward the Morgendorffer house (she’d never thought of it as ‘home’) Daria hummed "If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world this would be".

Back at home, at her desk, Daria pondered the afternoon’s events. She had missed her first two targets, but had taken out another target that she’d thought would be much harder. On the whole, a big success. But why had she hesitated and lost the chance to get all three? Today could have been the last time she ever heard "Diarrhea, cha cha cha!" Surely she wasn’t feeling sorry for the miserable misbegotten morons. They’d burnt up her last drop of sympathy long ago, shortly after they’d expended their last crumb of amusement value.

Daria had had such high hopes when her mother had gotten that offer from the law firm in New York City, but something had happened and that had fallen through. She hadn’t been so thrilled at the offer from Detroit, but it had to be better than Highland. Then there’d been a mention of San Diego, and she’d been ecstatic, only to have her hopes dashed yet again. When an offer came from some place called Lawndale, she hadn’t allowed herself to hope, and, sure enough, that had fizzled out too. More and more, it looked like her earliest opportunity to escape this hellhole would be college.

Daria had finally been driven to the conclusion that, if she was condemned to a miserable existence in the armpit of the world, she might as well try to get rid of some of the stinkiest bacteria in her immediate vicinity. And today, with help from a totally unexpected quarter, she’d gotten rid of one of the worst. Maybe that was why. They might prove useful in the future as a delivery system. Or maybe as scapegoats.

She looked at a piece of typing paper with letters pasted on it, letters cut from magazines and newspapers. Letters that formed the message: "Todd was the first. The list is long. Highland Beautification League." Smiling crookedly, Daria got out her very most secret notebook and prepared to encipher an entry.

La la LA la la.